Yes, Bobby Johnson's fellow coaches in the SEC have recognized him as the league's Coach of the Year.
Sure, the award is important, and it'll look good on the wall of Johnson's office. But even more important: Those who cast their votes.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a sportswriter in America who cast a vote for Johnson over Nick Saban. See, those sportswriters used their university-honed reasoning skills and deduced that:
• Nick Saban won 6 games last season and 12 games this season.
• Bobby Johnson won 5 games last season and 6 games this season.
• Houston Nutt took a team that won 4 games last season and won 8 this season.
Simple, right? Saban wins in a landslide, while Nutt's a solid runner-up.
So while the sportswriters favored Saban in a landslide, why did the coaches cast an equal number of votes for Saban and Johnson and Nutt?
Because they think Saban's an arrogant jerk who sends memos asking office workers not to speak to him in the hallway because he'd have to learn their names?
Actually, the SEC coaches know how hard it is to win at Vanderbilt, and how hard it was to get the Commodores to a bowl with a green offensive line and offensive "skill" players who wouldn't be on the roster of many other SEC teams. Both Saban's and Nutt's teams are loaded with future NFL performers. Johnson's is not. That's why I say it may be a blessing in disguise that Johnson didn't have a 10-win season and get bites from the big schools with head coach openings. We need Johnson to stay in Nashville and keep battling; it's a tough, tough job and no other SEC coach would want it.
If Johnson leaves, we're not getting Steve Spurrier — or any other current Division I head coach — to take his place. The Ol' Ball Coach has already taken on a charity case in Columbia.
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